


Seven hours in heaven

by Elyf_Sinfonia



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Claustrophobia, F/M, Fluff, Love Confessions, Making Out, Panic Attacks, Pre-Relationship, Snogging, Trapped In Elevator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-19
Updated: 2015-12-19
Packaged: 2018-05-07 06:18:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 17,867
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5446331
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elyf_Sinfonia/pseuds/Elyf_Sinfonia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Seven hours." Sherlock said, staring at the emergency button which was still stubbornly jammed. </p><p>"Seven hours what?"</p><p>"Seven hours before anyone arrives to use this elevator and realizes it has broken down."</p><p>"We're going to be stuck here all night!" Molly cried, practically hyperventilating.</p><p>To think she had been trying to keep her distance from him ever since he returned from his fake death. And to think she had done such a good job pretending she was over him. But of course the universe hated her enough to decide to trap her in a tiny dark cramped box suspended in the middle of nothingness alone with Sherlock Holmes for an indeterminate period of time. If they managed to get out of this ordeal without him triumphantly discovering that she was still very much in love with him or without her losing control and snogging him senseless, Molly Hooper was going to have a newfound belief in God.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [CeciliaShepherd](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CeciliaShepherd/gifts).



> Hi everyone! :) 
> 
> This is my very first full length Sherlolly fanfiction and also my very first work to be published on AO3, and I couldn't be more glad and proud that it is for the 2015 Sherlolly Big Bang Challenge. Sherlolly is my favorite OTP of all time, and the mods have done a brilliant job coordinating this whole thing. Also, they are the nicest people I have ever met! 
> 
> I would like to thank my wonderful artist CeciliaShepherd for drawing such a beautiful piece of art for my story despite her busy schedule and for tolerating all my specific requests. Much love!! Go and check it out here and give her all the love and praise she deserves: [The Hair-do](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/2015_Sherlolly_BigBang_Challenge/works/5471219?view_adult=true)
> 
> Also, I want to thank my two betas Karley and Lyrial for reading all my drafts of this story and giving me so many awesome suggestions here and there, and picking out grammar and punctuation errors and what have you nots. 
> 
> Thanks for giving this story a try, and hope you enjoy it!

Molly was one of those rare people who actually loved their job, despite it being in a cold, silent and creepy morgue with shelf upon shelf of dead bodies. Molly was also one of those rare people who actually loved Sherlock Holmes, despite him being an obnoxious, narcissistic and emotionally constipated git.

But at three in the morning, even Molly had to admit she had seen enough of the morgue and of Sherlock for one day.

“Are you finishing up anytime soon?” she asked Sherlock. Or rather, she asked his back; the consulting detective was currently hunched over his favourite microscope, sleeves rolled up to his elbow and mass of dark curls more dishevelled than usual. He had been studying the same specimen for the past forty-five minutes, which had to be a record, even for him. He had not moved so much as a muscle save for adjusting the knobs of the microscope here and there, and Molly marvelled at how much he resembled a marble statue at times. Of course, she marvelled over other things too, but this was not the place and _definitely_ not the time to be thinking of such things.

Sherlock grunted in response, which was the best acknowledgement of Molly’s presence he had made for the past two hours.

Molly sighed in exasperation, not even caring that Sherlock might hear. Of course he wouldn’t hear. He was blind and deaf to the entire world when he was focused on his work. Why did she even bother continuing to do so much for him? No, not again; she refused to let herself ponder the same question she had been pondering ever since the first day he swept into her morgue as if he owned it.

“Sherlock.” she said, allowing her voice to raise a few decibels higher than its usual soft titter. “I would like to go home now.”

There was complete silence for the next five seconds, and just when Molly was about to step forward and bodily drag him from his bloody specimens, he bolted up from his seat so rapidly that the chair tumbled backwards and landed on the floor with a resounding crash.

“ _It was the gardener_!” he announced triumphantly. He spun around to face Molly, beaming as if twenty mysterious and gruesome murders had landed on the doorstep of 221B all at once.

Molly was about to tell him to keep his damn voice down – they _really_ weren’t supposed to be here at this hour and heaven knows _why_ she had agreed to let him stay after hours – when she noticed the glee in his eyes, and the excited smile that was spread over his face. She also noticed, quite suddenly, the tired lines streaked around the corner of his eyes and the touch of grey at his temples, and suddenly realized this was the first time she had seen him so happy ever since the toll of his fake death and the whole business with Magnussen.

Her irritation with him dissolved, as it always did, and she managed to smile back at him. “That’s fantastic, Sherlock.”

“He’s the one who did it – I’m sure of it.” he continued excitedly, striding around the autopsy table while pointing at the sliced-open body lying on top of it. “There was only a trace level of arsenic left in her bloodstream – almost undetectable – but look at the basophilic stippling on the peripheral blood smear – and of course he would have access to it, just look at the state of his elbows and his shirt collar – and the timing, it’s just right – he must have done it after they were back from the opera – look, Molly, look at the pancytopenia here and that urinalysis we did earlier with the white cell casts–”

Molly did not bother pointing out that she couldn’t exactly “look” at either of those things, and silently began to clear up the mess he had left on her table as he continued to pace around the morgue, detailing every step of his reasoning and scientific process at the top of his voice. It was a habit of his, she had noticed. It was never enough to just arrive at answers; he had to let everyone else know _how_ he had done it, so that they could all admire his brilliance.

“I would never have thought of that.” she said truthfully as he was halfway through a ramble about how he had managed to precisely balance a series of particularly tricky chemical equations (with extra emphasis on exactly how tricky it was, so that there could be no doubt that no mere mortal could have done it but him).

He turned to her with a look of slightly pleased surprise, even slowing his steps, as if impressed that she had managed to follow his thought process so far. She supposed John would have tuned out by that point. “You didn’t see the results of the biomarkers.” he said with a shrug, and she bent over to pick up a stack of glass beakers so that he would not see her blush and smile. There was a time when he would have arrogantly declared that of course she wouldn’t have thought of it, she was an inferior mind and only he could, but that had almost been an acknowledgement that she would have managed it if she had seen the test results like he had.  

“No, I was getting your coffee then.” she said, still not facing him.

“Oh.”

“Yup.”

“Was that where the coffee came from?”

“Yes, Sherlock, that’s exactly where it came from.”

Another pause. Molly piled all the contaminated equipment into the sterilizing machine and set the dial to ‘run’.

“Thank you, Molly.” he said, somewhat awkwardly. It almost sounded like a question, as if he was not quite sure if it was what he was supposed to say and was offering it up for her assessment. It was yet another thing she had noticed about him recently; he was making an effort to say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ to her and around her (more often than not four seconds too late, and sometimes in the entirely wrong context), which would have been sweet if not for the fact that he had to even – you know – _make an effort_ for something that even pre-schoolers knew to do.

Who was she kidding? It was still sweet to her, perhaps even more so.

Molly laughed as she tore her gloves off and tossed them into the yellow biochemical waste bag. “Has Mary been teaching you some manners?”

Sherlock grimaced. “I don’t need to be _taught._ I’m not a child.”

This was so in line with her previous train of thought that Molly burst out laughing. Sherlock stared at her in befuddlement. “What is so amusing?”

“Nothing.” she said, shaking her head. “It’s nearly three in the morning and I’m slightly insane.”

“Is it?” he said in genuine surprise, lifting an eyebrow that still made her swoon internally. “I thought it was seven.”

“Seven in the morning or evening?”

“Either.” he said dismissively. “Let’s go – I need to phone Lestrade and tell him to make the arrest.”

“If you phone Lestrade now he’s going to set a pack of Rottweilers on you.”

“Assuming he owns Rottweilers, which he doesn’t, he won’t. I’m his best asset and he would be utterly and completely lost without me.”

Sherlock fished out his phone from his coat pocket before Molly could organize her protests – that it was the middle of the blood night, that Lestrade had enough to deal with over the past week without being woken up by mad consulting detectives, that he really should be helping her to make the morgue look vaguely presentable before her supervisor could see it the next day and realize she was _still_ letting “that utter prick” have access, that he really really needed to learn what was socially acceptable and was not before someone other than her and John clouted him over the head.

Then he growled in frustration and jabbed the phone violently with his finger. “Flat.” he snarled, glaring at it as if it had personally offended him.

Molly heaved a sigh of relief. “Come on, Sherlock, let’s just go.” she said, rubbing her dry eyes with the back of her hand. “You can phone him tomorrow.”

Sherlock paced around the lab impatiently, his whole body bristling with energy. “But he needs to know _now!_ ”

“He needs to know who the murderer is or he needs to know how intellectually superior you are to the rest of the world?” Molly asked slyly.

Sherlock looked affronted, and Molly knew she had hit the nail on the head.

“If it’s the former, no one even suspects the gardener so he won’t have run off by tomorrow morning, and if it’s the latter, everyone already knows that. So get over here and help me clear up so we can all go home. I haven’t left out enough food for Toby and he must be yowling the whole apartment complex down by now.”

“Why you would let that animal rule your life and interfere with your schedule is beyond me.” Sherlock grumbled, but actually obeyed her command to help, which she knew by now meant he was grudgingly impressed that she had managed to read his mind and counter him so well.

Which was also why she decided not to point out to him that if not for her soft-heartedness in letting undeserving creatures rule her life and interfere with her schedule he would most certainly not even be standing in her morgue in the middle of the night and using it for his damn experiments and cases. She might be hiding it well – John was certainly convinced and even Mary was starting to believe it – but her being finally over Sherlock was the furthest thing from the truth. Oh, she had definitely loosened up a lot around him, she was able to call him out on being a prick whenever he behaved like one (which was ninety percent of the time), and she no longer wheeled out corpses with restricted access with just a mere smile on that stupid perfectly sculpted face of his.

But over him? _Not bloody likely,_ she thought with a grimace.

Which of course he picked up on immediately, seeing as he was, well, Sherlock Holmes.

The only difference now was that he actually had some slight inkling on how to react to such facial cues besides loudly deducing it in the most embarrassing way possible.

He paused in the midst of disassembling the microscope. “Are you upset?”

“What? No. No, no, I’m just sleepy.”

“Oh come on, I did just insult your beloved animal and your slightly over-dependent relationship with it – him.” Sherlock sounded almost annoyed, as if he had finally reacted in a socially appropriate way like what everyone had been trying to teach him his whole life, and she had refused to give him the due recognition. She turned to catch him almost pouting petulantly at her and could not help but giggle.

“It’s okay, you just made up for it.”

“What did I do exactly?” Sherlock asked with raised eyebrows.

She waved a hand at him vaguely. “Oh, shush. You don’t need to have a logical explanation for everything.”

“I thought it might be useful information for the future. Then I might be more adept at – making up – for any transgressions I do you.”

Molly felt a hot blush rise on her cheeks. Sherlock Holmes, who rarely spent a spare second thinking about others’ feelings and certainly never pondered making amends for something he had done wrong (or indeed, admitting he had done wrong at all), wanted to know how best to make it up to her? And – and – not just for tonight, _for the future too._

She forced herself not to think about it before she swooned on the spot, and it would not do to let her carefully constructed facade of I-am-totally-over-Sherlock-Holmes come tumbling down after all that effort (and one semi-fake fiancé).

“You’re helping me clear up.” she said, smiling.

He looked slightly confused. “It would be much faster if I help you clear up.”

“Yes, it would.”

“And we can get home sooner and get a good night’s rest.” he paused. “You did say you wanted to go home, right?”

“I said that many times.” she said with a laugh.

“I meant earlier, when I was still at the microscope.”

“You heard that?” she asked with no small amount of surprise. “I thought you were so engrossed that you wouldn’t hear a volcano erupting.”

“Of course I heard it.” he said, waving his hand impatiently. Molly hastily took the test tubes from him before he dropped them – those were _expensive._ “I just wasn’t able to respond at that moment. I was in–”

“–your mind palace.” Molly finished. She removed the equipment from the sterilizing machine and began packing them back into their respective cabinets. “But wow, Sherlock, this is definitely a revelation. Wait till I tell John you can actually hear what he says whenever he rants about you thinking you’re too focused on your work to hear him.” She didn’t mean it, of course, because the poor Dr Watson deserved this form of stress relief and she didn’t want to be the one to take it away from him.

“I can’t.” Sherlock said brusquely, shrugging his coat on and throwing the end of his scarf over his shoulder. “I can’t hear John.” he explained in response to her quizzical look.

“But you can hear me.” It came out a bit more incredulous than she had intended. “When you’re in your mind palace, I mean.”

“Yes.” he confirmed.

She stared at him for a while and he stared right back and after a while she realized that _oh lord the room is getting a bit warmer than it should be._ Hastily she threw on her coat and tried to wrap her scarf around her neck, but realized for some godforsaken reason that she seemed to have forgotten how to do it. She settled for stuffing it unceremoniously into her coat pocket before he could deduce that.    

“Um – uh – shall we go then?” she tittered nervously.

He stood unmovingly, blinking at her for two seconds before nodding and turning to walk out of the morgue.


	2. Chapter 2

“ _No,_ Sherlock, definitely not.”

Sherlock turned to look at her, as astonished as if she had just announced her intention to propose marriage to Mycroft. “How on earth did you know what I was going to say?” he demanded.

“You have that look on your face. Also, you _always_ force me to take the stairs with you. I don’t exactly need to read ‘The Science of Deduction’ to know that you’re going to suggest it again now.”

Molly pressed the button for the elevator before Sherlock could say anything else to try and induce her to change her mind. Honestly, that man was obsessed with taking the stairs, it was like he could not stand even a single moment of inactivity. Usually she humoured him – much as she hated physical exertion she could not deny that she needed the exercise. But no, it was three in the morning, she had been on her feet for most of the last twenty hours, she smelt of formaldehyde and there was the matter of Sherlock’s recent puzzling behaviour (which she was most definitely going to waste hours pondering over hot chocolate once she got home). Climbing three flights of stairs from the basement level of the morgue to the entrance of St Bart’s ranked pretty high on the list of things she most certainly did not want to do right now.

“Oh, _fine._ ” came Sherlock’s disgruntled reply just as the elevator arrived with a _ding!_ and the doors opened. They entered together and Molly smiled at her mini victory. At least he did not roll his eyes and say that he would meet her at the entrance and then take off on the stairs by himself.

“Let’s share a cab home.” Sherlock said abruptly as the lift doors began to close, slowly and with much creaking. St Bart’s really was due for a renovation. Molly always had to jab the button at least twice before the doors would respond.

“Huh?” she said, not having heard him properly over the sounds.

“I said, we can share a cab home. If you want.”

Molly blinked at him uncomprehendingly. “But you live on the other side of town from me.”

“That does not explain why we cannot share a cab. I can ride with you to your apartment before the cab drops me off at mine.”

Why?

“Uh – but why would you–”

“It’s late and I don’t trust cabs.” Sherlock cut in. “Too many of them are unhinged. The drivers, I mean.”

“Are you – are you actually worried about – my safety?”

For a moment Sherlock looked as if he wasn’t sure how to answer, and there was a slightly awkward pause, which was promptly broken when the elevator jerked violently and Molly was flung straight into his arms.

“Oh my god, I’m so sorry–”

The elevator chose that moment to descend a few terrifying centimetres, causing Molly to shriek and clutch onto the lapels of Sherlock’s coat just as she was about to extricate herself from his grip. Then many things happened at once – the dim lights lining the elevator ceiling flickered off, the elevator ground to an abrupt halt with an almighty screech and the resultant force threw them both to the ground, Molly landing rather painfully on her side with Sherlock’s coat lapels still gripped tightly in her fists. 

A deep groan of pain and the sound of flesh hitting metal told her that Sherlock had thrown his palms out against the floor of the elevator, preventing himself from collapsing directly onto her. Even as the elevator gave one last tremble, he remained awkwardly suspended above her, his loosened scarf grazing her neck. Dazed from the sudden fall, the pitch darkness they had been thrown into, and the very close proximity between Sherlock and herself all at once, Molly lay stunned on the floor for a few seconds, unable to react.

Sherlock, however, moved from her immediately once it was certain the elevator was not going to move again. He stumbled to his feet, colliding against the wall a couple of times. Molly tried to make out his silhouette through the curtain of darkness as she pushed herself into a sitting position, wincing as her bruised pelvic bone brushed against the floor.

“It’s broken down.” she finally managed to say in the direction of where she thought Sherlock was.

“Yes, fairly obvious.” came Sherlock’s slightly irate voice. A few impatient jabs at the lift button.

“That won’t help.”

Sherlock groaned impatiently, spinning around and causing his long Belstaff coat to whip into Molly’s face, which made her suddenly realize how small the elevator really was. “I can’t be trapped in an elevator all night!”

“All night–” Molly’s eyes widened as the realization hit her. She didn’t exactly have a lot of experience, but something told her that elevator breakdowns were not temporary glitches that could be repaired and done with in half an hour or so. _They could be stuck here all night. Oh god._

Her breath was starting to come faster and faster. “We’re going to be stuck here all night!” she cried, almost hyperventilating. 

“Stop that.” Sherlock said severely. “Seeing as you agree with me about our possible prolonged stay in this enclosed space, you should be smart enough to know we need to conserve what little oxygen we have. Breathe normally.”

Molly’s state of panic was building so rapidly that she could not even find it in her to be concerned that she was projecting too much of an imbecilic image to Sherlock by not obeying him. “I can’t!” she cried, in between rapid shallow breaths, as she curled her legs up, pulling her knees close to her chest. “I don’t want to be stuck here – I’m already so exhausted – and Toby’s going to be so worried – and my mum too – and – and – I can’t even _see_ you!”

Suddenly Sherlock’s face emerged from the darkness and directly in front of her, his hands gripping her upper arms. “Molly, I’m right here.” His clear blue eyes were looking into hers so intently and the hands that curled around her arms were so steady without being overly forceful that she felt her panic slowly begin to subside. She began to breathe more easily and her fists that were clenched so tightly that her nails were digging into her palms began to loosen.

“Can you see me now?” he asked, gaze still not moving from hers.

“Yes.” she whispered. Now that he was closer and her eyes were slowly adjusting to the darkness, she could see that he was knelt on one knee directly in front of her. She could feel his knee brushing against her bare ankle.

“And that makes you feel better?”

“Yes. Somehow.”

“Good. I need you to be calm. This is not the time to panic.”

“Okay.” she whispered, half-wishing that she did not sound so much like a frightened child. She was a grown woman with a professional degree, for god’s sake, and she cut up dead bodies for a living. She was _not_ going to allow herself to tremble like a leaf just because she was – well – trapped in an elevator with Sherlock Holmes – just the man she had been in love with for the last few years, no big deal, and with whom things had been more than a little awkward recently. Oh, and trapped for several hours, possibly.

“Okay.” she repeated, louder and more forcefully this time, because for some godforsaken reason he was still in the exact same position as before, eyes still boring into hers as if he wanted to commit them to his memory forever. “Let’s – uh – shall we start by pressing the emergency button?”

“Already done.” he replied, removing his hands from her and standing up again. “But I’m not optimistic. It jammed once I pressed it and that is by no means any confirmation that the signal has been sent.”

“Did you press it too hard?” Molly demanded, gripping the railing above her head and pulling herself to her feet as well.

“I most certainly did not.” Sherlock said, sounding affronted.

“It can’t just jam – it’s an emergency button. It’s designed to work.”

“Of course it is. But if the designer is anything like the idiots who run this hospital, or in fact like ninety percent of the idiots that populate the world, it will not perform according to its supposed function.”

“Then what are we supposed to do?” Molly demanded. “I know – let’s call someone.” She reached into her bag and fumbled in its depths for a bit, before pulling her phone out. “No signal.” she said after a few seconds of staring at its screen, defeated.

“As expected.” Sherlock sighed, thrusting his hands into his coat pocket and leaning against the wall, closing his eyes.

“I suppose things could be worse.”

“How could it be any worse?” Sherlock demanded.

Molly rolled her eyes. “I thought you said we weren’t supposed to panic? I’m just trying to look on the bright side.”

“Yes, thank you for trying to inject a note of positivity into the situation. I am not panicking but I _am_ allowed to express my distaste at the whole thing.”

“I’m so sorry that it’s _me_ you were unfortunate enough to be stuck with.” Molly snapped, feeling rather hurt. She had well and truly accepted that he was never going to return her feelings, but he didn’t need to show how abominable he thought it was to spend a few hours alone with nobody but her. “You don’t seem to mind it so much when you use my lab for all your experiments and cases.”

Sherlock opened his eyes to look at her, and she could see genuine surprise in them.

“I never said I found it unfortunate to be trapped here with _you_ in particular.”

“What about your ‘distaste’ then?”

“Yes, distaste at the general situation of being trapped in an enclosed space for a prolonged period of time. Why on earth would it include you?”

“I don’t know.” Molly muttered, turning away. She knew she was sometimes overly sensitive, especially where Sherlock was concerned, but that was because he didn’t exactly have a stellar track record when it came to being sensitive to her feelings.

“Then you have no good reason for accusing me of–”

“No good reason?” she said incredulously. “What about all those times over the years – ever since I met you, in fact – all those horrible things you said to me and all the times you showed that you couldn’t stand my company? Because I was too slow and dull for you?”

Sherlock groaned as he brought his hands to his face – damn if he wasn’t actually _facepalming_ her – running his fingers through his dark curls. She distinctly heard him mutter, “John said this might be a problem.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Nothing. Nothing at all.”

“John said what?”

“ _Nothing._ ” he insisted. “Molly, I never said you were ‘too slow and dull’ for me. Quite the opposite in fact. Why do you think I always insist on working with you when you are not the only pathologist in St Bart’s?”

“Because I’m the only one stupid enough to be manipulated by my feelings for y–” Molly cut off abruptly and actually clapped her hand over her mouth in horror. _Oh good lord this was most definitely the very last thing she wanted to say to Sherlock, especially when she was going to be forced to face the consequences of saying it with no means of escape. Literally._

Cheeks flaming, she turned her back to him immediately. She could hear her heart pounding in her ears as she prayed fervently to every deity that she had never believed in that Sherlock would be hit with a sudden acute bout of amnesia. Just to cover the last twenty seconds or so, that would be sufficient.

“Mol–”

“Well!” Molly exclaimed loudly and rather too cheerfully, with her back still turned to the man she wished was a million miles away at that moment. “Since we’re quite obviously trapped here for some time until someone comes for us, which will probably be tomorrow when the janitor arrives – well perhaps not the janitor, he wouldn’t take the elevator – I just said it because he’s obviously the first person to arrive in the morning, and–”

“Molly, you are rambling.”

“No of course not. I’m not rambling. Why would I be rambling? You said we should conserve our nitrogen – er I mean oxygen – right? So I wouldn’t ramble. I’m not rambling.”

“ _Molly._ ”

 “What?”

“It would be excellent if you turned around to face me.”

“Why?”

“Because it feels extremely unnatural to be talking to your back. I cannot deduce what you’re thinking without reading your facial expressions.”

Well, if Molly had known that that was all it took to put Sherlock’s endless deductions to a temporary halt, she would have done it ages ago, nevermind that it would be impossible to appreciate his fine arse and perfectly sculpted cheekbones with her back turned to him. “Why on earth would you want to deduce what I’m thinking?” she asked, heart still pounding.

“Because you were possibly about to say something that is of great importance to me.”

“No!” Molly exclaimed, whirling around to face him in a desperate bid to prove that she had nothing to hide. Her mind barely even registered what Sherlock was saying about something of great importance. “No no no.” She shook her head furiously, ready to defend herself to her death. “I didn’t say anything.”

“I very clearly heard you say that–”

“Sherlock, please, drop it.”

“But–”

“ _Drop it._ ”

Sherlock’s eyes bored into hers, and she could see from the subtle crease on his forehead and the slight knitting of his eyebrows that his deductive mind was working at its highest level, reading every flash of expression in her eyes and every subtle line in her face. She stood there, staring straight back into his eyes, willing herself to assume a neutral expression, but how was that even possible when she had basically just blurted out what she hoped he would never know – that till now, her feelings for him had not faded one bit? She braced herself for his inevitable scathing, triumphant remarks.

But none came.

Impossibly, but surely, she saw his frown deepen and one eyebrow raise slightly – what she had learnt by now was his typical expression for when he, however rarely, failed to deduce something.

Then his expression cleared, and he shrugged in a non-comital sort of way. “Fine.” he said. “If you don’t want to discuss that, then perhaps we might be better off planning how best to allocate the remaining hours before our rescue.”

“Allocate?” Molly asked blankly, still slightly unnerved by how easily he seemed to drop the subject, and how he had failed to read what was in her mind.

“Yes, allocate.” Sherlock said, the classic bite of impatience returning to his voice. “I assure you, Molly, that if we don’t decide how best to spend the duration of our entrapment, either one of us will end up an incoherent mess curled up in the foetal position on this floor.”

Molly glared at him, daring to add that the said incoherent mess would most likely be her. She could sense it was on the tip of his tongue.

“I was not about to say it is likely to be you.”

“Oh, so now your deduction skills are back?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Sherlock returned, turning away from her to stare at the emergency button, still stubbornly jammed. “Seven hours.”

“Seven hours what?”

“Seven hours before Stamford arrives to use this elevator and realize it has broken down. Possibly another half hour before he thinks to call the servicemen.”

“Sherlock, that would be ten in the morning. He would arrive way before then.”

“Not after having quarrelled with his wife tonight, being forced to check in at the nearest flea-bitten motel, getting a terrible night’s sleep and oversleeping tomorrow.”

“How do you – nevermind.” Molly had learnt to accept Sherlock’s deductions as a way of life by now. “Seven hours…” Suddenly a thought occurred to her, born from memories of long-ago secondary school games, and she giggled.

“I don’t believe there is anything particularly funny about that specific quantity of time.” Sherlock said with a raised eyebrow.

“Of course you don’t. I don’t suppose you’ve ever heard of that game – seven minutes in heaven?”

“It sounds dreadfully dull.”

“No it’s not. You see, a girl is chosen to go into a closet – a dark one – and then boys roll dice to see who gets to go into the closet with her. The winner enters the closet for seven minutes and during that time he can do whatever he wants with her.”

“Dreadfully dull _and_ inane beyond belief.”

“It’s supposed to be fun. It’s an opportunity for teenagers to be alone and snog–” Molly cut off, realizing exactly what she had said and what she had implied, given that she had just compared the exact situation they were in now to this game. Oh god. _Stupid stupid stupid,_ she cursed to herself. Just barely five minutes after what she had embarrassingly blurted out! She really couldn’t have chosen worse timing if she had tried.

Sherlock’s eyebrows had shot up so high that they had disappeared beneath his fringe of dark curls. “So what you are saying now is that–”

“Sherlock, you know what?” Molly interrupted. “I would be eternally grateful if you just pretended that the last ten minutes never happened.” She could tell that he was already marshalling arguments against this proposition, so she hastily sat herself on the elevator floor and unzipped her bag. “Shall we go through our provisions and decide how we’re going to – uh – allocate them?”

“Provisions. Really, Molly?”

“You’re the one who described this as an entrapment.”

“I suppose I did. What _do_ you have in that bag?” He settled himself onto the floor next to her, and suddenly Molly was reminded of sleepovers and campouts, especially in the darkness of the elevator that had now faded to an acceptable dimness in their adjusted eyes.

“Let’s see…” Molly rifled through her bag, pulling out item after item that she thought might be useful. For the first time in her life she was pleased that she had all manners of junk in her bag, because she never got around to clearing it out like she promised herself she would every weekend. She was meticulous and detail-oriented and – she might as well face it – anal about her work, because she had to be, but every other aspect of her personal life was as disorganized as could be. One by one she laid out a bottle of water, three energy bars, a glow-in-the-dark dinosaur, sheets of blank St Bart hospital progress notes, a pink glitter pen, a packet of peanuts and a very crumpled magazine clipping describing ‘7 amazing hairstyles in two minutes!’.

Sherlock stared at the small pile for exactly four ‘Mississippi’s (and Molly knew because she actually _counted_ because she was such a _dork_ ).

“There are exactly two items that are of use here, and none of them involve glitter or ridiculous hairstyles.” he said at last.

“You’re going to say the water and the food aren’t you? I know they’re the most important, but come on – from what little I know of prolonged confinement in small spaces, people go half mad with boredom more often than starving to death. We can at least entertain ourselves.”

“I was going to concede the water but not the food. If you must know I was referring to the light source.”

“You actually approve of a glow-in-the-dark dinosaur?”

“I approve of a light source.”

“Why on earth do you think the food is not useful?”

“Because the digestion of food will divert the primary blood supply to the gastrointestinal system, and I would much rather have a well-perfused brain than a robust digestive system at this point.”

“I am a doctor and I’m telling you that if you don’t eat your great brain is not going to be of much use.”

“You are a pathologist and all your patients are dead.”

“They aren’t dead because of me!” Molly protested.

“Nevertheless, I am not eating.”

“Sherlock, we have seven hours ahead of us. Neither of us had a proper dinner unless you count the coffee I forced you to drink when you absolutely refused to tear yourself away from the microscope or let me leave the morgue to get food in case you needed me to pass you a test tube. We’re going to faint with hunger if we don’t eat anything at all.”

“You are free to eat as much as you want, but I’m keeping my mind palace intact and crystal clear.”

“Your mind palace is going to be a stack of rubble if you don’t eat.”

Sherlock crossed his arms and glared at her, reminding her so much of a stubborn child that Molly had to fight the desire to laugh in case he took that to mean she was not dead serious about him eating.

“Sherlock.” she said as sternly as she knew how. “You are going to eat even if I have to force feed you myself.”

“Is it that important to you that I eat?” Sherlock asked, rather disgruntled.

“Um–” It struck Molly as a very odd thing to say. Was it important to her? ‘Important’ was not exactly the word she would use; as if she was asking him for a special favour that would mean a lot to her. And why would he care even if it was? “Yes?” she tried uncertainly.

“Oh _fine.”_ Sherlock huffed. “I shall consider it. But not right now.”

“Okay.” Molly said in amazement. Whatever had just happened, it seemed to have worked. Sherlock was not going to turn into a skeletal anaemic by the end of their ordeal, which was always a good thing.

Sherlock pointed a stern finger at her. “Do not get used to this, Molly Hooper. I’m not about to give in to your every whim just to please you.”

“Sherlock Holmes, since when have you _ever given in_ to anything I wanted?” Molly demanded incredulously.

“Since five seconds ago, when I agreed to eat something to please you.”

“You’re not doing that to please me, you ridiculous man, you’re doing that because it’s the sane normal thing to do.”

“Normal. How dull.”

“See, you’re the one who gets bored after just five minutes of inactivity. We definitely need some form of entertainment.”

Sherlock cast a dubious eye over the pile of things between them. “You are proposing we write hypothetical patient notes in pink glitter and then do your hair in these frankly ridiculous styles?”

“These aren’t ridiculous.” Molly defended. In fact, she had been intending to try them for ages, but as with everything else, she simply never got around to it. Also, they looked way harder than any hairstyle claiming to be doable in two minutes had any right to be. Molly was quite good at DIY hairstyling after years of YouTube tutorials and dateless Saturday nights spent practicing in her room – in fact it was one of the few things outside of dissecting corpses that she actually felt vaguely adept at, she thought wryly – but this was just slightly above her skill level. It was rather off-putting, which could be the reason why she had left the clipping in her bag for so long without doing anything about it. She wasn’t exactly keen to meet failure in something that had always made her feel better about herself. Even Sherlock chose to compliment her hair whenever he needed special favours from her.

Sherlock took the clipping from her hand, smoothing it out and studying it with a critical eye.

“Two of them are not ridiculous.” he conceded grudgingly.

“Which ones?” Molly asked despite herself, shifting over so that she was side-by-side with Sherlock, both of them leaning back against the wall of the elevator like two tramps commiserating over a bottle of alcohol as they sat under a bridge.

He pointed out his selections, and Molly felt a sudden warmth in her heart to see that those were in fact the ones she had liked best herself.

“They’re hard though.” she said, feeling shy for some reason.

Sherlock let out something that was between a laugh and a snort of derision. “Of course not.” he said. “I thought it was rather the point that they were easy and able to be done in under two minutes.”

“Well, you try it then.” Molly said sarcastically.

She should have known that recognizing sarcasm was not one of Sherlock’s myriad skills.

“I believe I will.”

“ _What?_ ”

“I said, I believe I will. Turn around.”

“ _You_ – are going to try – doing these _hairstyles –_ on _me?_ ”

“Yes, I thought that was fairly obvious.” Sherlock said, even looking slightly miffed that she was not taking him seriously. “Were you not the one who said we should entertain ourselves?”

“But – but–” Molly could not think of a single reason why she should let Sherlock anywhere near her hair, but she could also not think of a single reason why she _shouldn’t._ “Have you ever even done anyone’s hair before?” she hedged, stalling for time as she tried to figure this out a little more.

“Not unless you count putting my mother’s hair in a bandana when I was five and in my pirate phase, hoping she could be my first mate.”

“No bandanas, and no first mates.”

“There is nothing in this elevator that vaguely resembles a bandana, and even if there was I am long past five years old.”

“You sure don’t act like it sometimes.” Molly said with a smile. “Uh – okay – if I let you do this will you promise not to wreck my hair?”

“How could I possibly wreck it?”

“I don’t know, you’re a man of many talents.” Molly said, shrugging. “Umm…so if we’re going to do this, you’ll need hair ties, so hang on a moment.” She dug into her bag once more, before finally producing a mass of hair ties of different colours, all knotted together and with two plain black hair pins tangled up in them as well.

As she struggled to undo the knots Sherlock laid the clipping over his lap as he moved his hands deftly in the air, practicing the necessary steps through a phantom head of hair. Molly glanced up at the sight, both amused and impressed. “I didn’t know you were even interested in this sort of thing. Not dull then?”

“I will have you know I made an impressive set of origami swan napkins for John’s and Mary’s wedding.” Sherlock said. “I did fifty of them in under half an hour. Mary was suitably impressed, but John thought it was too much, so no one else ever saw them.”

“I would have liked to see that.” Molly said truthfully. “I can’t say I’ve ever seen origami swan napkins before. You’re just full of hidden talents aren’t you? Since when did you know how to do origami?”

“I learnt it on YouTube just five minutes before starting to do them.” Sherlock said, with the air of smug self-satisfaction and bragging tone that always accompanied the explanations to his deductions.

Molly giggled as she finally managed to pull the hair ties apart. “Of course you did.”

“Now turn around.” Sherlock ordered as he took the hair ties and hair pins from her.

Molly could not stop her heart from skipping a beat as he said that, and it was a very good thing that Sherlock could not see the blush that had involuntarily rose on her cheeks as she turned her back towards him, leaning forward a little and wrapping her arms around her knees to give him better access to her hair. Oh yes, she _most definitely_ wasn’t over him yet. It was such a perfectly innocent statement, on his part anyway, but she could not stop her traitorous mind from conjuring up images of him repeating that very same command in quite a different context; one that did not take place in a broken-down elevator and involved far less clothing.

Quite embarrassed at the sudden turn her thoughts had taken, Molly almost jumped when she felt Sherlock’s fingers glide into her hair, loosening it from its ponytail.

“Molly, do relax. I’m not going to shave your head bald or colour it green.”

Sherlock’s deep baritone coming so closely behind her was most definitely not helping. Molly wondered as her heart raced madly if he had ever spoken to her from behind before. She was quite sure she would have remembered it. In fact, they had not spent so much time together in such close proximity for a very very long time. She had been trying to keep her distance from him ever since he returned from his fake death, dating Tom and telling everyone she was over him. It was as far away from the truth as can be, of course, but she had to retain some dignity after years of blatantly swooning and pining over him. She thought she had done such a good job of hiding her true feelings from him, but of course the universe hated her and decided to place her in a dark little box in the middle of nothingness with Sherlock Holmes for an indeterminate period of time, and made her blurt out all manners of stupid things and think all manners of inappropriate thoughts. If they managed to get out of this ordeal without him triumphantly discovering that she was still very much in love with him or without her losing control and snogging him senseless, Molly Hooper was going to have a newfound belief in God.

She managed, with a heroic effort, to suppress a shiver as his long fingers threaded through her hair, deftly parting them into sections and pinning one in place. How was it that he was good at practically everything he tried?

“What a childish name.” came his voice from over her shoulder again.

“Huh?” she asked stupidly.

“ ‘Princess updo’. This _is_ directed at grown women, not pre-schoolers, is it not?”

“Well it does look very princessy.” Molly said, twisting her head slightly to glance at the clipping on Sherlock’s lap. She realized his knees were resting just a centimetre away from her shoulder, and his frame was much closer to her than she had thought.

“Don’t move.” he scolded, placing both hands on either side of her head and shifting it back into position. “There is no margin for error here.”

Molly giggled at the precise scientific way in which he was undertaking this. At least she could be confident he wouldn’t make a mess out of her hair. It wasn’t like there was anyone around to see it, but when they were eventually rescued she wasn’t keen on looking like she had just fought her way out of a bush.

“Who is Taylor Swift?” he asked next as he began braiding a section of her hair, and Molly could practically see the look of disdain on his face and the slight wrinkle of disgust of his nose.

“The one who inspired this hairdo.” she explained. “She’s a singer, and she did her hair this way for one of her music videos.”

“And was this singer playing the role of a princess in this – _music video_?” he said the last two words the same way most people might say ‘vermin’.

“It wasn’t exactly very clear, but the song did mention princes and princesses, so she probably was.”

“Good grief.” Sherlock said. “Princes and princesses.”

“I happen to like those lyrics.” Molly said defensively. “They’re sweet. ‘ _You’ll be the prince and I’ll be the princess, it’s a love story baby just say yes’.”_ she sang the lines softly.

“Hmmm.” Sherlock said appraisingly, pushing a pin into place.

“Hmmm what?”

“Passable I suppose.”

“I hope you’re not referring to my singing.”

“God no, Molly, not everything I say is an insult to you. I was referring to the lyrics.” Sherlock paused. “I apologize.”  

“What?” Molly forgot the rule about not moving and turned to look at Sherlock, the lock hair that he had been in the process of twisting unfurling as it slipped from his fingers. Apart from at that horrible Christmas party years ago, she had never heard him apologize to anyone.

“I apologize for the cruel things I have said to you in the past. It was not my intention to hurt you. It never was. I have been exceedingly insensitive without realizing it, but I can promise I will endeavour to check myself in future.”

Molly stared at him in shock. His eyes were serious and his face was unsmiling; he actually looked sincerely contrite. She realized that he had not only acknowledged and apologized for how horribly he had treated her in the past but also promised never to do it again, and suddenly Molly felt a huge rush of affection for him. Of course common courtesy was something that came naturally to most people, but Sherlock Holmes wasn’t most people. He seldom gave a thought to other people’s feelings, save those rare occasions and only with people he cared about. The fact that her feelings were important enough to him to warrant him changing his behaviour (which he _never_ did) – did that – could that mean that she was–?

“Molly?”

She was startled out of her reverie. “Umm, yes, thanks.” she said. “That – that’s very – thank you, Sherlock.”

“Do you forgive me?” he asked, looking at her as if his entire world hinged on her reply.

How could she possibly say anything else?

“Yes.” she said, truthfully. “As long as you really mean it.” she added. Just because she was touched that he had apologized did not mean she was still completely wrapped around his little finger enough to just take his word for it.

Sherlock’s expression cleared and he gave her a rare slight smile. “Molly, I very seldom say something I do not mean.”

Molly laughed. “That’s true. You say whatever you think all the time, and damn the consequences.”

Sherlock smirked. “You know me well, Molly Hooper. Now, shall we get back to giving you a princess updo?”

“I wouldn’t have it any other way.” Molly said, turning back again and leaning forward into her original position, smiling slightly as she felt Sherlock’s fingers pick up where he left off. For a while there was a companionable silence as Sherlock worked away, with the only sounds being that of hair ties snapping into place and hair pins brushing against the floor of the elevator as he picked them up. Molly felt strangely at ease for the first time since their ordeal began. There was something very comfortable and relaxing about getting her hair done, with Sherlock’s fingers threading through her hair with surprising gentleness and skilfully braiding and twisting them without causing her the pain she was used to when it was someone else doing it. And somehow, it was the closest she had felt to him since she had helped him fake his death and gave him a place to sleep on her couch for the days following that.

“This is kind of nice.” she commented after a while.

“Wait till you see the final product.” Sherlock declared. “This is possibly even better than my origami swans.”

“Then it must really be something.” Molly giggled. “Although – you _are_ taking longer than two minutes, you know.”

“That article is flawed.”

“You said a while ago that the whole point of these hairstyles was that they could be easily done under two minutes.”

“Apparently I was mistaken.”

“Sherlock Holmes – doing my hair, apologizing to me, and admitting he made a mistake? What _has_ gotten into you today?”

“Perhaps–”

When he did not finish his sentence Molly turned her head slightly. “Perhaps what?” she prompted.

“Nothing.” he said. “This is neither the time nor the place.”

Molly was rather confused. She hadn’t meant anything beyond a throwaway joking comment, but he seemed to have taken the question seriously. “What’s wrong, Sherlock?”

“I promise I shall explain everything once we’re out of here, Molly.”

“There’s something to explain?” Molly asked, even more confused.

“Yes, I do believe there is. But in the meantime, seeing that we’re still here with no immediate means of escape – do you want to take a look at the final result?”

“Oh, it’s finished?” Molly exclaimed, forgetting about Sherlock’s strange words in a flash. “Let me see!”

“You may have to rely on the reflective surface of your phone, Molly, seeing that there are no mirrors here.”

Molly quickly dug into her bag, pulling her phone out and switching on the camera function. She was not the type to take what the youth of today called ‘selfies’, so the camera was facing the other way. She fumbled for a while before locating the button to switch the camera around, then held the phone at arm’s length.

“Oh my god.” she gasped, staring at her own reflection in the phone’s camera screen. “It looks gorgeous!”

Sherlock’s triumphant smirk was visible from the corner of the camera screen. “I told you so.” he said smugly.

“I look – sorry for being shameless – but I look like Taylor Swift!”

“Although I have not seen this person before, I daresay you do. There is nothing shameless about saying so.”

“It looks perfect, Sherlock!”

“I know.”

Molly admired her reflection from various angles for a while, marvelling at just how good it looked. Trust Sherlock Holmes to be a talented enough hairstylist to be able to recreate an elaborate hairstyle from a music video with just a few hair ties and hair pins! And in a dark broken-down elevator no less, with both of them crouched on the cramped place on the elevator floor.

“I need to take a selfie.” she said impulsively.

“A – pardon me – what?”

“Oh, it means to take a photo of oneself, at least that’s what the young people these days like to call it – not that we’re not still young, but–”

“Yes, I am familiar with the slang, thanks to John and Mary.” Sherlock interrupted. “I do believe I have heard Anderson of all people use that term before, despite him having not much in the way of physical attractiveness to be worth photographing.”

“I don’t think I have ever taken one before, but there’s always a first time, and what better first time can there be than when I have my hair done up like in _Love Story_?”

“I assume _Love Story_ is the title of the music video.”

“Yup.” Molly said, trying to angle the phone in a way that would best capture the hairdo. It was much harder than it looked to take a selfie, given that she had almost zero practice before. The dark lighting in the elevator was also making it hard to get a photo that did the hairdo full justice.  

“Would it not be easier to allow me to take the photo for you instead?” Sherlock enquired.

“No, I want it to be a selfie. In fact I want you to be in it too.” Molly insisted.

“Me? To what end?”

“Because you’re the creator. You _have_ to be in the photo.”

“In that case let me attempt taking this – selfie.”

Molly would no longer be surprised by now if Sherlock revealed a sudden previously undiscovered skill for glassblowing or macaroni noodle art. Without any protest she surrendered her phone into his palm, and focused on trying to decide which position would give her the best lighting. Finally she settled herself next to the still-jammed but blinking brightly emergency button, because that was the only light source in the elevator. Sherlock moved over to sit by her side.

“Here.” he said. “Hold this.”

He thrusted the glow-in-the-dark dinosaur into her hands.

“Oh, I totally forgot this was a light source too.” Molly said, giggling as she held it up.

After multiple attempts from different angles, with Sherlock’s long arm providing them with a wide photo scope and with Molly holding the dinosaur which managed to cast a faint glow over them, Molly was at last satisfied and called a halt to the photoshoot. Soon they were both flicking through the photos together, Sherlock keeping up a running stream of commentary about the lighting and the angles and generally praising his selfie skills, and Molly giggling over their facial expressions. Sherlock had on what Molly noticed was a slight variation of his usual ‘photoready smile’, which was halfway between amusingly fake and frankly rather creepy. It was the smile that he plastered on his face when forced to by either John or Lestrade, whenever he got his picture taken for the papers after solving a particularly big crime. But these photos he had just taken with her – they looked a bit different. It was still borderline creepy – Molly thought to herself amusedly – for anyone who didn’t know Sherlock anyway, but it had a hint of goofiness and genuine affection which made Molly smile more widely than she should.

She resisted the urge to make one particular photo her wallpaper. Her face was tilted slightly towards Sherlock to show off as much of her elaborate hairstyle to the camera as possible, her neck was bent elegantly in a way that showed off its graceful slope, and her expression was for once not its usual awkward deer-caught-in-the-headlights. In short, it was quite possibly her most flattering photo so far. Sherlock, too, was looking very good. Who was she kidding, she _always_ thought he looked good. But maybe it was his expression – like they were actually having fun together, like they were actually fond of each other.

“If I cropped you out, could I use this as my wallpaper?” Molly blurted out without thinking.

Sherlock’s eyebrows raised. “Why would you want to do that?”

“Because I look good in this photo, for once?”

“Of course you do, and not just ‘for once’.” Sherlock said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “What I meant is, why would you want to crop me out?”

“Umm – I – uh – well – I thought you might want me to?” Molly floundered. Her mind was still kind of jammed from what Sherlock had just said – did he actually just pay her a subtle compliment, and did he just sort of state that he might not really mind her including his face in her wallpaper?

“And why is that?”

“Because – because – you know what? I don’t know.”

Sherlock made a strange clicking sound with his tongue, conveying something between slight irritation and exasperation, before taking her phone from her hands and jabbing at the screen for a while. “There.” he said, sliding the phone back into her hands. “It’s done.”

Molly stared at the lock screen, which indeed now displayed the very photo she had been eyeing. “Thanks.” she said, still staring at it in disbelief.

“I’m not a celebrity, Molly, there’s no need to thank me for my picture.”

“But you actually _are_ a celebrity.”

“Well, you knew me before I was one. So I should hardly count as a celebrity to you.”

“Fair enough.” Molly said, smiling as she gazed down again at her new phone wallpaper, eyes lingering on Sherlock’s smile. Perhaps being trapped in an elevator with him wasn’t the worst thing ever after all, she thought musingly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I've always had this headcanon that Molly loves DIY hairstyling and that it's something she often does to cheer herself up, because doesn't she always have the prettiest hairstyles?? I will always remember how Sherlock complimented the way she did her hair in The Blind Banker (although he was doing it to gain access to the bodies, the git!). 
> 
> I've also always loved the hairstyle Taylor Swift had in the Love Story music video, and I think it would look great on Molly, so of course I had to give it to her. :) 
> 
> My amazing artist CeciliaShepherd did a beautiful rendering of this scene, please go and check it out here: [The Hair-do](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/2015_Sherlolly_BigBang_Challenge/works/5471219?view_adult=true)


	3. Chapter 3

“What’s next on the agenda?”

“The what?”

Sherlock tapped his watch. “We still have several hours to go before our rescue. Possibly more, given how dreadfully moronic the St Bart’s staff are. What are we going to do next?”

“Good grief, Sherlock, I know you get bored easily, but this is slightly ridiculous.” Molly said. “We’ve had about an hour of inactivity, tops.” It wasn’t even strictly inactivity. Molly had spent some time idly playing around with the newly taken photos on her phone, putting them through various filters in an app she had recently downloaded. Sherlock had busied himself with drawing a detailed street map of London across four pieces of the St Bart’s hospital progress notes, arranged in a neat rectangle. The sight of him sitting cross-legged on the floor and scribbling away with a pink glitter pen was so adorable that Molly had been quite distracted from her photos.  

Obviously that had not been enough to keep Sherlock entertained for long.

He flopped backwards against the wall of the elevator, slumping down so that his head rested just below the hand rail, and exhaled loudly. “Inactivity is bad enough as it is, but inactivity just after I’ve solved a case and cannot tell it to everyone is even worse.” he grumbled.

“It’ll be over soon.” Molly said soothingly. “If you want you can tell it to me all over again – how you worked out the equations and samples just now and what happened when you went to the railway station earlier to talk to the brother-in-law –”

The words were barely out of her mouth before Sherlock sat upright immediately, a gleam in his eye. “Elementary.” he said. “I was there with John at precisely twenty-five past eight in the morning. That was forty-five minutes after he arrived and ten minutes after his morning coffee, which I knew was when he would be most–”

Molly almost regretted her offer as Sherlock went on for twenty minutes straight, barely stopping to draw breath. Deductions and logical processes and subtle interrogation techniques came spilling out of his mouth one after another, at a lightning speed that Molly just managed to follow. She wasn’t sure how important it was to actually understand him. Mary had told her once that John sometimes just nodded without really listening because that was all Sherlock wanted – an audience, a sounding board. But she _wanted_ to understand him. And it actually was fascinating, like seeing a whole new world of details through his eyes. Except that it really was very late and the effects of her sleep deficit were starting to catch up on her.

“Wow, Sherlock.” she said when he was finally done. “I don’t know how on earth you can see details like that. I mean, I’ve known you for years and I still can’t believe it.”

“It’s a matter of observing, not just seeing.” Sherlock said proudly, as if he had brought home a good report card to his mother. Molly was suddenly reminded of her brief stint in babysitting when she was in her teenage years. Being with Sherlock felt very much the same, she thought, especially when she was forced to entertain him before his great brain rotted away from boredom. That reminded her of a game she used to play with her charges.

“You know what you’d be really good at?” she asked impulsively.

“You mean, besides the platitude of things I have just demonstrated to you?”

Molly rolled her eyes. “Yes, _besides_ those, you arrogant prat.”

“Well, do humour me then.” Sherlock said, leaning back against the wall and steepling his fingers together as he smirked at her.

“There’s this game – twenty questions. You won’t have heard of it before, but–”

“I know this game.”

“ _You do?_ ” Molly stared incredulously at him. “Seriously, how many other things can you do that I’m not aware of?”

“John made me play it the night of his bachelor party. He sold it to me by saying it was all based on deductions.”

“That’s exactly what I was about to say. Since you’re so good at deducing things, you should be able to deduce who I’m thinking of immediately.”

“Well, as it turns out I failed quite abysmally when I played it with John. In my defence I was extremely drunk.”

“You’re not drunk now.”

“I do have a wish to make up for that terrible performance.” Sherlock admitted grudgingly. “Fine. Let’s play it. But promise me you won’t pick me as your character. Or any celebrities. Actors, singers, and what-have-you-nots.”

“Then I have to pick a real-life person. Like, someone we both know.”

“That, or you can also choose a fictional character.” Sherlock said shrugging.

“You know fictional characters but not actors and singers?”

“I watch a great deal of television whenever I’m bored.” Sherlock admitted. “I just don’t bother finding out about the actors who are in them.”

“Okay, tell me which shows you have watched so I don’t pick someone you wouldn’t know.”

Sherlock rattled off a list of shows, which Molly was actually quite surprised by. Some of them were to be expected, some of them were still vaguely believable, but some were just so shocking that she could scarcely believe Sherlock actually watched them.   

“Okay.” she said. “I think I’ve made my choice.” She had selected one of her favourite female television characters – Amy Farrah Fowler from The Big Bang Theory. Amy was a socially awkward, nerdy scientist who never had many friends and was desperately in love with an arrogant narcissistic genius who was as emotionally constipated as a block of wood. It wasn’t terribly hard to see why Molly related so strongly to her.

“Is this a fictional character or a real-life person?” Sherlock asked.

“I can’t tell you _now._ You can use that as your first question when we start.”

“No.” Sherlock said decidedly. “I’m not going to ask something as inane as that.”

“It’s not inane.” Molly protested. “That’s what everyone asks at first. Real or fictional, celebrity or not…”

“I’m not going to ask that.” Sherlock said.

“You’re just trying to prove how clever you are, aren’t you?”

“Let’s start.”

“You’ve picked your person?”

“No, you pick and I’ll deduce.”

“That’s not how the game works. We both have to pick someone.”

“I’m modifying the rules.”

Molly sighed in exasperation. It really was like babysitting a stubborn toddler. Who also happened to be a genius. Who was always hell-bent on getting his way. Who would risk getting shot just to prove how clever he was. Fine, she would humour him. There wasn’t much else she could do anyway, they still had some time to go before someone rescued them. And she _was_ kind of curious to see him in action.

“Fine, Sherlock.” she said. “Let’s start then. Your first question?”

Sherlock smirked triumphantly, and Molly tried not to think about how damned sexy he looked whenever he did that.  

“Is this person a female?” was Sherlock’s first question.

“Yes.”

“I knew it.” Sherlock announced.

 _Why, because you knew I’d pick someone whom I relate painfully to?_ Molly thought with a cringe. Outwardly, she rolled her eyes at him. “If you’re going to be gloating over every correct deduction you make, this game might well last us for the rest of the time we’re here.” As if to make her point, she shuffled over to the opposite side of the elevator from where Sherlock was sitting and leaned back against the wall, as if settling down for a long wait.

“Then it will indeed have served its purpose.”

“I thought its purpose is to give you a chance to show how clever you are?”

“Is this person petite in stature?” Sherlock asked, choosing to ignore her jibe.

“Well…yes.”

“Is this person intelligent?”

“Oh, very.” Molly said. Amy had a PhD in Neurobiology after all.

Sherlock was looking more and more smug by the second, and Molly had the sneaking sinking suspicion that he knew exactly who she had picked. She really should have gone for a less obvious choice. Someone she didn’t like, like Penny. That was what everybody did when they played this game, they chose someone unlikely. Not their favourite character.

“Oh, Dr Hooper.” Sherlock said, smirking. “This game shall be over within minutes.”

“Just ask your damn questions, Sherlock.”

“Does she don protective gear in her line of work?”

“Yes.” That’s it, he definitely had the answer. And she was not looking forward to the deductions that came later as he psychoanalysed her choice of character.

“Does she have a slightly morbid but nevertheless amusing sense of humour?”

Molly cringed. “Yes again.”

More questions followed, each one hitting the nail on the head with startling accuracy. Molly had a feeling that Sherlock already knew the answer, and was asking all these questions just to show exactly how correct he was. They were certainly way past just twenty.  

“Is this person attractive?” came the next question.

“Sherlock, that isn’t a yes-no question. It’s so subjective. It depends on whose point of view you’re looking from, everyone has different tastes…”

“Then don’t give me a yes-no answer.” Sherlock said, suddenly looking serious. He was gazing intently at her from across the elevator, and in that moment even the air seemed to have gone quieter. Molly wasn’t even sure what exactly had brought on this change in atmosphere – they were just playing a game – and yet she couldn’t help but feel that there was a slightly personal element to Sherlock’s question. As if there were some deeper meaning behind it. She was suddenly acutely aware of her right foot almost touching his left, through their shoes.

Before she could stop herself, she was talking. “I guess…she _is_ attractive in a non-conventional sense. Most people probably wouldn’t think so. In fact, they don’t. Almost everyone says she’s unattractive, or at least hints at it. But…there may be something about her, you know? It just takes the right person to see it.”

There was silence in the elevator for at least ten seconds after she stopped talking.

“Oh my god, why are we being so serious?” Molly asked, letting out a hesitant awkward laugh. “It’s just a game. Um – make of that answer what you will. Let’s just move on.” Why on earth had she said all that? Was she talking about Amy or was she talking about herself? It was stupid Sherlock and his stupid intense gaze and his stupid too-close presence in this stupid small elevator. It was doing things to her mind.

Sherlock was still looking at her, his head titled to one side, one eyebrow slightly raised and forehead creased in thought. “I believe I have enough to go on.” he said finally.

“That’s…good.”

There was silence for another five seconds before Sherlock cleared his throat. “Well then – shall we – next question?”

“Um…yeah, yeah. Next question.”

“Is this person selfless and kind and always there for her friends?”

“Hmm…” Molly pondered the question for a while. Sherlock certainly asked very unconventional questions. “Yes. I would say so.”

“Does she ask for very little or nothing in return?”

“I…I’m not even sure, Sherlock, you ask such deep questions!”

He did not even seem bothered that she had not provided an answer, but continued asking. “Did she once love a man?”

“That would be a yes.”

“Has this man been treating her far less well than she deserves?”

“She – I mean he–”

“Has this man realized this too late?”

Molly was now just staring at him openly, mouth slightly open in shock. Exactly what kind of questions were these? He was no longer leaning back against the wall. As his line of questioning progressed he had sat upright and was leaning forward closer and closer with every passing second. His voice was getting louder and more strained, the words coming out faster and faster as if they were stumbling over each other in a hurry to be heard first.  

The tension in the elevator was so thick and palpable that Molly could barely breathe. And she didn’t even know why. How had this simple game taken such an emotional turn? What on earth was happening with Sherlock?

“Does she love him still?”

Molly experienced a sudden strange cocktail of sensations – as if something had just gone very very right and very very wrong all at once. Also, she was more confused than she had ever been in her life. And at the very back of her strained, sleep-deprived mind, was the niggling thought that the entire situation had just taken a very personal turn. Why else would he be so agitated? Was he actually trying to tell her something, in typical vague esoteric Holmesian fashion? Lost in thought, she barely even realized that she was still staring at Sherlock, not providing him with any answer, and that he was staring right back, waiting for one.

Then it came to her, like a bolt – _goodness, did Sherlock actually think the character she had chosen was HERSELF?_ All the questions he had been asking over the last fifteen minutes came back to her, like the news headlines flashing across a screen.

_Petite in stature…intelligent…protective gear…morbid sense of humor…_

She had been so focused on the game and Amy that she had not even considered how very much this description fit her own self. And then the significance of his later (and stranger) questions began to hit her.

_Attractive…selfless and kind...once loved a man…_

And his last question.

 _Does she love him still?_  

Why would he want to know that? If he had been assuming they were talking about her, and about the sacrifices she had made for him and the help she had given him without a single thought when he needed to fake his death, and how she had once loved him…

Why would he want to know if she still loved him? Unless it was because he–

 _No. No no no._ She was not going to go down that track. She had gone down that track at that Christmas party, when he leant in close, fingers curling around her wrist and murmuring into her ear, before kissing her cheek. When he came to her that fateful day in the darkened morgue and told her how she had always counted, and responded to her question of what he needed with a simple ‘You’. When he told her he hoped she would be very happy in the empty stairwell, with that tortured melancholy look in his eyes, leaning in close and hovering just inches from her face, as if about to kiss her lips, before kissing her on the cheek again and striding off into the cold winter evening, coat billowing behind him.

“Could we not play anymore?” The words came out of her, but she didn’t feel as if it was her own voice at all.

Sherlock, still leaning forward and seemingly on the verge of saying something, paused as if she had slapped him. His eyes were slightly wild and his expression shocked. “What?”

“I – I don’t really want to play anymore. This game.” she added, and then marvelled at why she had felt the need to clarify that. There was indeed more than one game that she no longer wanted to play with him. Specifically, the game that had started from the moment he strode into her morgue as if he owned it and the moment her heart first skipped a beat for him. The game that had taken so many twists and turns, highs and lows, as she fell for him, cried for him, swore herself off him and then fell for him all over again. The game she wanted to end for so long, the game that she thought she had already successfully ended. She turned away, and began to pull away the pins in her hair.

“You have not given me an answer.” he said in a strained voice, eyes following the movements of her hands as they unfurled lock after lock of hair.

“It doesn’t matter. It’s just a game.”

He looked at her, stricken, as if her answer had physically pained him.

She refused to contemplate that look. Her hands worked faster but clumsier than before, as if freeing her hair from this beautiful style could also free her from this spell, this bond, this rope of emotions and pain that tied her to this man.

Why?

Why did he have to do this again?

She had tried so very hard to forget him and her feelings for him, or to at least pretend they weren’t there anymore even if that was the furthest thing from the truth. But how could she continue to pretend when she had been forced into this situation which made her so acutely aware of those old but familiar feelings? The least he could do, she thought almost furiously as she turned her back to him, was not reawaken them by asking her thinly-veiled questions about whether or not she still loved him, under the guise of a simple game. Somehow, despite all he had previously put her through, she had forgotten Sherlock’s capacity for casual cruelty. Perhaps it had been his strangely considerate behaviour of late, but Molly should have known better. After all, she thought bitterly, this was Sherlock Holmes.

“Molly–”

“No, Sherlock.” she cut across him, trying to ignore the catch in his voice as he said her name. “It’s really very late and I’m more tired than you can imagine. I think I’m going to try and catch some sleep.”

She pulled out the last pin and shook that section of hair free as she felt it loosen and fall about her shoulders. For some reason something felt very sad and final about that simple action. There was complete silence in the elevator by then, save for her slightly heavy breathing. Slowly she laid herself down on the cold metal floor, curling up into the foetal position with her back still facing him. Her arms wrapped around herself and she tugged the lapels of her too-thin coat closer. Now that she wasn’t distracted with other things, she realized it was much colder than she had thought. She let out an involuntary shiver.

As the minutes drifted by, without a word or sound from Sherlock, her tense muscles began to relax and the mental guards she had been setting up began to slip. Her eyes closed as her mind numbed and succumbed gradually to the sleep that had been threatening to take her for the last few hours.

Somewhere in the back of her mind which was slowly tuning out everything around her, she thought sleepily that she heard a soft ruffle of fabric and felt a warm layer of something laid gently over her.

Then she slept.    

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As is probably obvious, one of my favorite fictional female characters (besides Molly of course!) is Amy from The Big Bang Theory. For those who haven't watched the show, the little description I put in the story is basically all you need to know about Amy. I've always thought that there was a ton of similarities between Amy and Molly, and also between Sheldon (Amy's love interest) and Sherlock. So I couldn't resist this haha. It's convenient too because of how alike they are!


	4. Chapter 4

Molly was generally a very heavy sleeper. Her day job took so much out of her physically and mentally, bending over corpses all day long and executing precise autopsies that spared little room for error, that when she did manage to hit the sheets she tended to sleep like the dead.

Which was why it took at least several minutes of hearing vague thumping sounds, heavy breathing and gasping to drag her from her deep slumber, and forced her sleep-heavy mind to connect the dots and realize something was not quite right. She jolted awake, eyes flying open but not really seeing anything as the sea of darkness swam before her. It took her a few confused seconds to remember where exactly she was as she disorientatedly heaved herself up to a sitting position, clutching at the railing above her head and feeling something soft and heavy slip off her.

“Sherlock?” She spun around quickly as she finally made sense of the source of the strange noises that she had been hearing but not quite registering over the last few minutes.

As her eyes slowly began accustomed to the darkness once more she made out his silhouette, slumped against the opposite wall of the elevator, heaving up and down as he took in rapid gulps of air. In a flash she was kneeling by his side, hands on his face and eyes wide in alarm.

“What’s wrong? What’s happening? Where does it hurt?” she cried. Somewhere in the back of her mind she registered that he was not wearing his coat and she realized that that was what had been covering her as she slept. He was clutching his chest and his skin was cold and clammy beneath her fingers.

_Myocardial infarction. Asthma attack. Pulmonary embolism._

The most alarming terms ran through her mind rapidly, from her not too long-ago past as a resident when she tended to patients who were still alive.

“No.” she gasped. “No, no, no, no…Sherlock, you’re going to be okay, look at me, I’m going to get help for you…”

With a chill of terror she realized that there was absolutely nothing she could do if he was experiencing any of those things; they were stuck in a small black box somewhere between St Bart’s basement and its main building, where anything of use was levels and levels above them. Desperately she began to unwrap and pull away the scarf around his neck, and shoved his jacket off his shoulders, pulling his arms out of their sleeves and even unbuttoning two buttons of his shirt that seemed too tight as his chest strained against it. Anything to relieve his distress.

Wrapping an arm around his back she used all of her strength to heave him into a more upright position to ease his breathing, and supported the front of his shoulder with her other hand to prevent him from slumping forward into his knees. “It’s okay.” she whispered. “It’s going to be okay. You’re going to be okay.” She lost count of the number of times she repeated those words as she rubbed his back in soothing circles.

Slowly his breathing began to slow, the back beneath her hand ceased to rise and fall so alarmingly, and his hand that had been clutching his chest loosened its grip and fell onto his lap.

“Sherlock?” she cried in alarm, before he slowly raised his head to look at her and she saw that he looked alright, or at least much better than before. His pale face was still streaked in sweat and a few damp curls were plastered to his forehead, but his eyes were alert and his posture was slowly straightening of his own volition. Her whole body sagged in relief as she released him from her embrace. “You’re alright!” she cried. “Oh my god, I was so worried!”

Then she burst into tears.

“Molly.” he said hoarsely. “Don’t…” A tentative hand was laid on her shoulder. “I’m alright now. Don’t cry.”

“I thought you were going to die!”

“I’m not–”

“I just woke up and found you like this–”

“I know, I’m so–”

“You were clutching your chest – and you were gasping – and you couldn’t breathe–”

“Molly–”

“I thought you were having a _heart attack–_ ”

Sherlock gripped her shoulders tightly. “Molly Hooper, listen to me.” He brushed the tears from her cheek with his thumb. He was looking at her the exact same way he did that day in the stairwell when he first saw her engagement ring – a mixture of sadness, fondness and affection. His lips slowly formed a small smile. “Are you telling me that you have forgotten so much of your non-pathology related medical knowledge that you failed to recognize a simple panic attack?”

Molly stared at him for a few seconds through her tear-filled eyes. “Oh.” she breathed.

“Really, a heart attack?” There were now tears in his own eyes too, despite the smile on his face. His voice sounded like it was on the verge of breaking and Molly was sure that if she spoke, she would be in the exact same state. “Despite my age and previous lack of all cardiovascular risk factors?”

“It’s not my fault.” Molly sobbed. “It looked terrible – you should have seen yourself – and it’s _you,_ you idiot, you _know_ I can never think straight whenever you’re involved–”

“I know.” Sherlock said soothingly, and suddenly he pulled her into his arms, straight against his chest, one arm wrapping around her waist and the other across her back as his hand touched the back of her head, and she allowed him to.

“And a panic attack is nothing ‘simple’.” she blubbered. “It’s serious, okay, and I didn’t even know you had those – since when did you have those?”

“I haven’t had one for many years.” Sherlock said softly. The hand at the back of her head was stroking her hair gently. “You wouldn’t have known.”

“When–?”

There was silence for a while, and Molly thought he wasn’t going to speak.

“Ever since the time I was trapped at the bottom of a well for six hours overnight, with a broken ankle and more scrapes than I could count.”

“What?”

“I was six, and I was stubborn and reckless and refused to heed Mummy’s warnings that the backyard was no place to play at being a pirate.” He paused. “And that pirate gold did not need to be dug up in the dead of the night.”

Molly laughed, but it came out as more of a watery choke. “So you were an idiot even then?”

“Oh, very much so. Perhaps even more so.”

“I guess being caught in an elevator did not exactly bring back the fondest of memories.” Molly said quietly into his chest. “I’m sorry – I didn’t know–”

“Shush, Molly, it’s fine. I will not have you blame yourself for something that you could not possibly have known. And I was perfectly calm, for the most part, because this elevator is far bigger than the well was, I wasn’t hungry or injured, I’m no longer a child, and–” He paused again and his hand stilled. “–and I had you here with me.”

Molly’s fingers involuntarily curled around his shirt. “That – that helped?”

“Immensely.” Sherlock said quietly.

“I–”

“Your presence was such a great comfort to me, Molly, more than you knew and more than I ever let on. From the moment the elevator stopped and the lights went out, I closed my mind and I steeled myself, I told myself to take control of my emotions. But it would not have worked if you had not been here with me – with your glow-in-the-dark dinosaur, your pink glitter pen, and your cheerful chatter, your singing, your disorganized handbag which seems comparable to Aladdin’s cave itself, letting me do your hair, our ridiculous selfies.”

Molly was smiling by this time as she listened to him rattle off all the things they had done over the past hours they had been trapped together.

“And the game we played.” he added.

Molly’s heart skipped a beat. “Right.” she managed to say. “The game.” In all the distress and alarm of the past fifteen minutes she had completely forgotten how things were left off before she went to sleep.

“I am truly sorry I made you uncomfortable, Molly. It was never my intention.”

“It’s not your fault.” Molly mumbled. She attempted to push away from his embrace, but his grip tightened and he did not let her.

“I just–” Sherlock sighed. “I just wanted to _know,_ Molly, and idiot that I was I could not bring myself to ask you directly. I saw what I thought was a golden chance in this game, and I took it.”

“You thought I was referring to myself.” Molly said.

“Well, yes. Were you not?” He sounded puzzled, and despite not being able to see his face Molly could imagine it – a confused frown, one eyebrow raised higher than the other.

“No. It was someone else – it doesn’t matter now – but she was a fictional character whom I’m quite fond of. I suppose I can’t blame you for thinking it was me – I hadn’t realized how similar she was to me.”

Sherlock sighed. “Damn John Watson.”

“What exactly does John have to do with this?”

“He chose himself as his character when we played this game at his bachelor party. I assumed people were in the habit of picking themselves as characters.”

“Oh, Sherlock.” Molly said, half sighing in exasperation and half laughing in fond amusement. “You really are something. Also, you need to play games more often.”

“Molly, once again I apologize for having made you uncomfortable. I should never have asked this question of you at all.”

Molly knew that the wisest thing to do was to keep her mouth shut and just accept his apology, tell him that all was forgotten and suggest that they never speak of it again and continue on as they always were. Instead, she asked him, “Why did you want to know?”

“Can you blame me, Molly?” Sherlock sighed. “I thought, foolish as I was, that I may have still had a chance. Despite me coming to this realization too late, despite my abominable treatment of you in the past, despite the fact that you obviously moved on enough to make an engagement with another man, although it is now broken.”

Molly shoved away from him at once, so that she could look up into his eyes. Her heart was thudding in her chest. She needed to face him, directly, read his expression, because she could scarcely believe what she was hearing right now. She felt as if her entire future hinged on the next words she chose. “A chance?” she breathed.

“Yes, a chance.” Sherlock said. “A chance I should have taken ages ago when I still had it, the loss of which I’ll probably regret for the rest of my life.”

Molly began to smile. A strange new feeling was overtaking her, as if a weight she never knew had been on her chest was slowly lifting. As if she had been living in a world of grey clouds that were now drifting away to reveal a faint beam of light. “And…is this something that you still want now?”

“More than anything.” Sherlock said with a pained expression. “And even though I no longer have it, even though you no longer love me, I beg that you at least let me say this just this one time, so that I don’t have to add this to my long list of regrets. Molly Hooper, I love–”

And then, for once in his life, Sherlock Holmes was not allowed to have the last word.

Because Molly had thrown herself across the small space between them, flung herself at him with such force that they were both knocked over and onto the floor of the elevator, wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him as if her life depended on it. She felt him still in shock for only a split second before he returned the kiss with passion, because of course Sherlock Holmes was never taken by surprise for long.

He flipped them over in one swift move, so that she was now beneath him, lying on the floor as he braced himself on his elbows above her. The kiss broke briefly as they adjusted to their new position, and she let out a giggle of surprise before his lips descended on hers again. Molly may have been wrong about many things in her life, but as it turned out her first intuition that Sherlock Holmes was a _damned good_ kisser was right. He was cupping her face with his hands, moulding his body against hers as his lips claimed hers again and again and again, pouring all the longing and passion and need into it. Molly never knew she could possibly feel so many sensations at once. When he finally released her, pushing himself back on his elbows, she was practically swooning.  

His voice was hoarse as he started, “Am I to take this to mean that you do still–”

“I love you.” she said, lifting a hand to brush a stray curl off his forehead.

His eyes lit up in joy and a smile began to spread over his face. “You truly–”

“Really, Sherlock? You’re still doubting me? Do you think I let just anyone pin me to the floor and kiss me like that?”

“No.” Sherlock said in a low growl that sent thrills of pleasure running down Molly’s spine. “No, you most certainly do not. Because _I_ am the only one allowed to kiss you like that from now on.”

Molly laughed. “Possessive, aren’t we?”

“You don’t know the half of it, Dr Hooper.”

“Mmmm…and am I going to know in the days to come?”

“Yes.” Sherlock said. “Because I love you, Molly Hooper. I love you more than I have ever loved anyone or anything in my life, and I am never letting you out of my sight or out of my life ever again. I was not lying that day in the morgue – all I need is you – I need you like I need the air that is slowly getting ever thinner in this damned elevator.”

Molly burst into an uncontrollable fit of giggles, at the ridiculous circumstances that had brought them together and forced their feelings out into the open, and Sherlock’s incorrigible way of speaking even when he was trying to be romantic, and at the blooming happiness within her that she had finally found the man she had been missing her whole life. “I need you too, you know.” she was finally able to say, as Sherlock offered her his hand and pulled them both into a sitting position again. “I need you in my morgue, whipping dead bodies and messing up my specimens, calling for coffee and stealing body parts when you think I don’t notice. I need your annoying deductions about the shows I watched, the lipstick I wear and whether or not I remembered to feed my cat. I need you, Sherlock.”

“Well then.” Sherlock whispered. “It’s about time I give you what you need too.”  

He leant in close for another kiss, but Molly stopped him with her fingers on his lips. “Do you really mean that?”

“Of course I do.”

“Then eat a damned energy bar and drink some water. You are this close to becoming a walking skeleton and although I do love your cheekbones you need some nourishment, especially after that panic attack.”

Sherlock showed every sign of protesting, but Molly fixed him with her best stern glare. “This is my first official request as your girlfriend, and if you turn it down I’m afraid it’s going to reflect very badly on your aptitude as a boyfriend.”

Sherlock smirked at her. “Well played, Dr Hooper. Far be it from me to disappoint my girlfriend.”

It was definitely a day of wonders, Molly thought to herself with a smile as Sherlock began to unwrap an energy bar.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One thing that I thought I should clarify for anyone who noticed: I know that in The Sign of Three when Sherlock and John play the game at John's bachelor party, John did not in fact select himself as his character - he selected Sherlock. But Sherlock thought John had selected himself (he says "I'm you, aren't I?" just before they are interrupted by Tessa at the door, and so Sherlock never found out that the selected character had not been John), which is why he said that to Molly, and that he thought people were in the habit of choosing themselves for this game. Just in case anyone noticed that haha.


	5. Chapter 5

Mike Stamford was not having a very good time. After being shouted and yelled at for most of the previous evening by his enraged wife, things came to a head when he unwisely made a few choice retorts and was subsequently told to ‘get your face where I can’t see it!’. He had been forced to check in at _The Rose and Crown,_ which had rooms far less grand than its name would suggest, but was closest to his apartment and he did not really fancy walking a long distance in the cold London night to find another motel. After spending a night of tossing and turning on the harder-than-rocks bed and being bitten by bedbugs, he had inadvertently overslept after finally managing to catch some sleep towards the early hours of the morning.

Finally, he had been woken up by the incessant shrill ringing of his mobile phone. Barely registering the caller ID, he answered the damn thing to hear John Watson’s voice, anxiously asking him if Sherlock was at the morgue.

“What do you been, at the morgue?” he asked stupidly, still half-asleep.

“He didn’t go home all night, according to Mrs Hudson. She’s worried sick.”

“He can’t still be at the morgue. He was there almost all day yesterday with Molly.”

“Mike, you know as well as I do that when Sherlock is on a case he can’t be dragged away from his work come hell or high water. I wouldn’t put it past the idiot to stay there all night.”

“Molly wouldn’t allow that, John, and nor would the guards when they come to lock up.”

“Look, Mike, could you just please help me check? Because if he’s not there then I’m worried something bad may have happened – he was tracking a dangerous murderer. Wait a minute – shouldn’t you be at the morgue already by now anyway?”

Stamford glanced at the clock at the bedside table. “ _Shit!”_

John sighed. “Argument with the missus again?”

Ten minutes later, Stamford was desperately hailing a cab, his shirt pulled on inside-out. Not only was he two hours late for work, he also had to entertain the possibility that the one and only consulting detective could have spent all night unsupervised (because he refused to believe Molly would actually stay all night too) in his morgue doing god-knows-what, which broke more hospital regulations than he could count. Stamford was not even sure which he preferred – Sherlock being in the morgue or Sherlock not being in the morgue. If the former, he was going to have a lot of tedious paperwork to handle, and a lot of explaining to the hospital administrators who would surely be out for his blood. If the latter, he was going to receive a visit from DI Lestrade of Scotland Yard, because the morgue was about to be the new exciting scene of world famous detective Sherlock Holmes’s mysterious disappearance.

When he reached the lobby of St Bart’s, though, he saw that the Detective Inspector was already there, with John at his side. He sighed. He should have known that despite Lestrade’s professed exasperation with Sherlock, he still cared about him too much to just leave this to Stamford and John.

“Your lift is broken down.” Lestrade informed him severely as he drew close, as if Stamford had been personally responsible for this mishap.

“It is?” Stamford asked, blinking.

“We’ve sent for the servicemen.” John said reassuringly. “They’re almost here.”

“We can take the stairs.” Stamford suggested.

“No, we have to open it up.” Lestrade said, impatiently gesturing at the closed lift doors. “What if Sherlock is inside?”

“Wait, has anyone tried calling Molly?” Stamford asked. “She should be at work now, and she can tell us if Sherlock is with her, or if not when she last saw him.”

“I don’t have her number.” John said, and Lestrade nodded to indicate the same.

Stamford quickly fished out his phone and dialled Molly’s number. “Her phone’s dead too.” he announced to the group. “I’ll try the lab technician.” A couple of minutes later, just as the group of servicemen arrived at the elevator, he turned back to them, face slightly pale. “According to the tech, Molly never arrived for work this morning. He last saw her with Sherlock at nine pm last night before he left the morgue.”

John’s eyes went slightly wide. “Does that mean – that Molly could have been trapped – in there – with Sherlock – and _no one else_ – _all night?_ ”

Lestrade shook his head in pity. “Poor girl. Gentlemen, the sooner you get the elevator working again the better.” he added to the servicemen who were setting up their toolboxes.

“Of course, Sir.” one of them replied respectfully. “We’ll do our best.”

John sighed as he ran a hand through his hair. Under ordinary circumstances, it was trying enough to be stuck with Sherlock for hours on end. But he could only imagine how much worse it would be for Molly. He had a feeling, born from Mary’s subtle hints and from his own observations (he had eyes and a brain, after all), that Molly’s feelings for the consulting detective still ran true and deep, despite the image she was trying to project. Impatiently he began to tap his foot as the servicemen got to work.

Ten minutes later, the elevator began to show signs of life, as loud creaking noises came from behind the closed doors, sounding as if they were from a tunnel some distance away, and the light from the button flickered to life. “It seems to be suspended between floors.” one of the servicemen said, wiping sweat from his brow. “We’re bringing it up now.”

“Good work, men.” Lestrade said, sounding partially relieved and partially worried as the creaking changed to a loud thumping as the elevator rose. His hand was already at his walkie talkie, ready to call off the search for Sherlock or order it to continue on, depending on whatever scene awaited them in the elevator. John’s brows were knitted in anxiety, hoping that Sherlock was in there and that Molly was too, and that she wasn’t _too_ traumatized. Stamford just wanted the day to be over already, and it wasn’t even lunchtime yet.

“I don’t even want to think about the state Sherlock is in now, if he’s in there.” Stamford said, wringing his hands anxiously.

John snorted. “Knowing the git, he’s probably gone crazy with boredom. We’d better prepare ourselves for tantrums, sulking or fits. I’m pretty sure he’d be shooting the wall if he had a gun with him.”

“If Molly is in there with him, she might be in tears by now.” Lestrade said, as a sharp ‘ _ding!’_ sounded, signalling the arrival of the elevator at the ground floor.

“Or in hysterics.”

“Or they might both be delirious with hunger by this point.”

“Or maybe–”

John cut off abruptly at this point, because as the doors of the elevator finally opened for the first time in seven hours and revealed the scene behind them to the three men, he was pretty sure that his powers of speech were instantaneously robbed from him and would not be returning for _quite_ some time. He heard a loud thud as Lestrade, who had seen more grisly and gruesome murder cases in his lifetime than he could count, dropped his walkie talkie in shock. Stamford’s mouth had fallen open and his eyes were practically bulging out of their sockets.

Sherlock was in the elevator all right, and so was Molly.

But they were not slumped against the wall on opposite ends, tired and hungry and delirious.

There were no tantrums, sulking, tears or hysterics.

There were no bullet holes on the walls, which John had expected to be far more likely than what he could scarcely believe he was seeing now.  

Sherlock and Molly were wrapped in an embrace so tight that John could barely tell whose limbs were whose – something that was made even more difficult by the fact that there was far less clothing on the both of them than John would have liked to see. Said clothing was scattered all over the floor of the elevator, save for the blouse that Molly appeared to have been in the process of donning hurriedly and the trousers that were riding low on Sherlock’s hips. Both of their hair was tousled – Sherlock looked positively dishevelled – and Molly’s lips were slightly swollen and her cheeks flushed.

Sherlock quirked an eyebrow at them.

“Do stop gaping, gentlemen.” he drawled. “One would think you have never seen a bare torso before.”

“Sherlock.” John managed to splutter out, feeling as if someone had whacked him over the head and turned his brains to mush. “What – the _hell –_ is going on?”

“Oh my god.” Molly gasped, as if snapping out of a trance. Her hands, which had been on Sherlock’s chest, shoved him away from her quickly. “Sherlock!” she said shrilly. “I _told_ you to stop – I _told_ you they were going to open the doors–”

“It seems I may have underestimated these morons.” Sherlock said with a smirk. “But it’s your fault, Molly dear, you have completely addled my brains with your kisses.”

“Sherlock!” Lestrade burst out. “You – and Molly – the _elevator – really_?”

Stamford regained control of his senses quickly enough to shoo the dumfounded servicemen away, slipping a five pound note into each of their pockets and entreating them to kindly keep it to themselves that the world famous consulting detective was currently half naked in St Bart’s elevator and in a compromising position with one of its pathologists.

“A bit slow on the uptake, aren’t we?” Sherlock asked, still smirking as if he had just been knighted. Casually he shrugged his shirt back on, leaving it unbuttoned, before getting to his feet and offering a chivalrous hand to Molly and pulling her to her feet as well. Molly had managed to haphazardly button her blouse and pull on some of her remaining clothes, cheeks flaming like the sunset and head ducked.

“I’m so sorry – I mean _we’re_ so sorry.” she blabbered. “We got a bit carried away – I told him to stop once we felt the elevator move – but he wouldn’t listen.” She looked up at Sherlock, glaring at him as she said this last bit. It appeared that Sherlock was the only one present whom she was able to make eye contact with.

“Maybe you two can get out of the elevator first?” Stamford said pleadingly. “And then we can all get out of here before talking some more?”

“A capital idea.” Sherlock announced. There was not a single ounce of shame in his words or manner. “Come on, Molly. Let’s leave and get back to what we were doing before we were so rudely interrupted.” Grasping her hand, he pulled her close and guided her out of the elevator and past the three shocked men.

“ _Interrupted_? Well, there’s gratitude for you!” Lestrade blustered indignantly. “Sherlock Holmes, I sent out a search party for you! I came straight to St Bart’s–”

“Yes, yes, very touched, very touched indeed.” Sherlock said impatiently as he wrapped an arm around Molly’s waist. “Would you like a medal?”

“Will someone please tell me what’s going on?” John demanded. “Sherlock, are you and Molly–”

“Molly Hooper is now my girlfriend.” Sherlock said. “Fairly obvious, I would think, given that you discovered us about to–”

Molly not-so-discreetly stamped on Sherlock’s foot. “They don’t need to know what we were about to do!”

“No, no, we certainly don’t.” Stamford said, looking as if he might be sick. “Molly, could you please–”

“Oh Mike, I’m so sorry, it won’t happen again–”

“What do you mean it won’t happen again?” Sherlock demanded, staring at her as if she had grown ten extra heads.

Molly slapped him lightly on the arm. “I mean, it won’t happen here in the elevator or in public again.”

“Oh.” Sherlock said, his face relaxing back into a smug grin. “Would your office be fine, then?”

“ _No.”_ Stamford said emphatically before Molly could reply. “Molly, take the day off.”

“But–”

“ _Take the day off, Dr Hooper.”_

“Are you sure–?”

“Extremely sure.”

“Let’s _go,_ Molly.” Sherlock said, tugging on her hand impatiently.

Molly smiled fondly at him, and he smiled right back, with such genuine affection in his eyes that made John forget for a moment how Sherlock had just traumatized him. He stepped forward and clapped Sherlock on the shoulder. “Look mate, despite the uh – _interesting_ circumstances that led to this, whatever this is – congratulations.” he said warmly. “To be honest it was a long time coming.”

“Thank you, John.” Sherlock said. “It was a _very_ long time coming – so you can go home and tell Mary how very right she was.”

“She’ll be pleased.” John said, chuckling, and Molly let out a shy giggle.

“About bloody time!” Lestrade added, finally managing to school his indignation. “Well, Sherlock, you be sure to treat Molly right.”

“I’m not getting married!” Molly protested. “There’s no need for all this.”

“I’m really very happy for the both of you.” Stamford said, in a tone that suggested that he was the furthest thing from happy. “But could you both please remove yourselves from the hospital lobby? You don’t look fit to be seen.”

Sherlock did not need to be told twice. Sweeping his coat from the floor of the elevator he donned it with a flourish, popped the collar and ruffled his already dishevelled curls. Then he took Molly’s face gently in both hands and kissed her. “Let’s go, darling.” he said, and they strode off together, Molly’s hand curled around his arm and their heads bent together as he whispered into her ear.

As Sherlock gallantly opened the door of St Bart’s for Molly, he heard Stamford start a long rant over the phone to presumably the head of Maintenance at the hospital, insisting that they service the elevators more frequently to “prevent any further blasted breakdowns!”.

“Between you and me, darling, I’m perfectly fine with elevator breakdowns.” Sherlock said to his new ladylove.

“You know what?” Molly said, tilting her head towards him. “Me too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU for sticking with this to the end! :) Sherlolly walks hand in hand into the sunset, and all is right with the world. <3 
> 
> Credit goes to my lovely beta Karley for coming up with the idea on how the ending scene should play out, and credit also goes to my other lovely beta Lyrial, my dearest friend in the world, for her suggestion on how to add to Stamford's terrible horrible no good very bad day.


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